Arts & Politics: Candidate Forum Tonight

Hopefully your Happy Hour plans have now been finalized, but don't sleep on tonight's after-dinner edutainment: Mayoral candidates Eileen Brady, Charlie Hales, and Jefferson Smith, along with city council candidates Amanda Fritz, Mary Nolan, Steve Novick—and in an apparent last-minute addition, Teressa Raiford—will be appearing at The Gerding from 7-9 pm this evening for "a lively conversation about the arts in Portland." With the economy front and center in everyone's mind (no doubt much of the conversation will revolve around funding for arts programs for both children and adults), this is also a good time to consider the not-so-distant past in which Vera Katz's plans for Portland as a hub for the "creative class" have played out for good and ill before out eyes (granted it's highly debatable the degree to which she or her policies influenced those plausibly-inevitable developments), from Milepost 5 to ever-increasing numbers of underpaid and underemployed young people. Portland Monthly's Randy Gragg will moderate what's sure to be a packed house. And, if you think of any questions between now and then, fire 'em off to rsvp@theartscan.org. Afterward, stay tuned for our own Alex Zielinski's take on the conversation right here on Blogtown.